Vermont's Congressman Welch Attacks Free Enterprise

A very liberal Democratic Congressman from Vermont named Welch was all over cable news yesterday insisting that BP, at the federal government's behest, suspend its dividend and public image advertising during the duration of the containment efforts and cleanup of the Gulf Coast oil spew.


As I wrote only yesterday, Wonderboy has also been busy intimidating BP and trying to coerce the company's management to do his bidding out of fear of federal government power.


Let me state this clearly: both Welch and Obama are wrong.


This is the type of government behavior that belongs in a banana republic or some African dictatorship. Not the United States of America.


When one network anchor suggested to Welch that his energy was better spent investigating why government regulators were asleep on the job, the Congressman promptly attempted to blame the Bush administration for the lack of regulatory oversight.

Welch is embarking on a very dangerous and, frankly, completely unconstitutional path. That is, government intervention in private sector activity out of frustration and anger.

Welch blathered about how BP wasn't doing its image any good by paying a dividend or spending money on ads. Just how would Congressman Welch, a member of one of the American institutions with the lowest public approval ratings on record (23%) know anything about how to improve the image of any other entity?

Further, in America, publicly-held companies answer to shareholders, not to government. If BP, by paying a dividend, causes acrimony among customers and, thus, by extension, investors, then its share price will fall. That will be sufficient penalty.

It's totally wrong-headed and politically dangerous for our society to have the president and/or members of Congress demanding that BP change its internal managerial decisions on subjects in which it has not acted illegally.

If it's BP today, which company will be next, and on what totally subjective, arbitrary bases?

Our First Addict Lectures Us On Avoiding Information

Isn't it rich that our First Addict is now lecturing our youth on the need for them to avoid modern, technologically-advanced sources of information? In effect, admonishing them to turn from independent, often critical (of him) sources of information which strengthen democratic institutions?

I saw the video clip of Wonderboy instructing recent college graduates, at a commencement address, to swear off their iPods, iPhones, iPads and such. That they are becoming too addicted to these wonderful electronic means of communications and entertainment.

Assuming the First Rookie isn't simply taking aim at Apple Corporation, it sure seems that one addict calling other people addicts is pretty ironic. And laughable.

Here's a guy who rammed through punitive healthcare measures, lecturing one and all on the high costs of medical care, while he chain smokes in private.

Now, though he has been seen glued to his Blackberry and admitted having certain music on his iPod, he claims to not know how to operate the latter. And is lecturing youth to foresake their electronic toys.

More evidence our current president is a study in unprincipled behavior and the notion that others should do as he says, but not as he does.

Wonderboy's Ignorance Of The Supreme Court's Recent Campaign Finance Ruling

By now, much has been written about the eight members of the Supreme Court being ambushed by Wonderboy's grossly misleading and inaccurate characterization of the recent ruling nullifying some unconstitutional elements of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law.

Some feel the court members should have had some warning about the diatribe. Others feel it's appropriate for the president, representing the executive branch, to call to attention its disagreement with the judicial branch over a particular issue.

But what's not in dispute is that Wonderboy described the decision, and its effects, completely erroneously.

For instance, he said it removed a century-old ban on corporate contributions to political campaigns.

That's not true. It simply allowed institutions, such as labor unions, corporations and non-profits, to spend their own money at any time to express their political opinions. McCain-Feingold improperly sought to muzzle free speech by restricting the time before an election during which political speech by such entities could be expressed.

Additionally, while the ruling made no mention of foreign entities, our First Lawyer claimed that it did.

If the sitting First Rookie, who is a Harvard-trained lawyer, can't get these legal points straight, just what is he supposed to be qualified to do?

It's ludicrous to see a State of the Union address contain such factual errors, and in the context of being used to browbeat the highest court in the land.

Especially when the court, for once, has rolled back government control of speech, and restored the rights of freedom of expression.

What Would The Founding Fathers Say About Today's Communications Technology?

My business partner and I recently found ourselves pondering the question that is the title of today's post.

Considering a collection of men including Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, one cannot help but believe they would be thrilled at the immense scope of instant, broadly-distributed online communications options available today.

Imagine Franklin twittering. Or Jefferson's daily political blog. What would Sam Adams and Tom Paine have done with freely-available blogging capabilities?

Surely, the founding fathers of the American experiment would be pleased to see such freedom of expression available so ubiquitously.

However, at the same time, I would hazard to guess that they would have tweaked the design of government a bit, in light of such freely-available tools to incite passions in the citizenry.

For example, consider this post from just a year ago. It has probably become the most-searched and -read post on this blog.

If Franklin & Co. were writing the Constitution today, amidst our modern communications technologies, I think that, if they opted for direct election of Senators, they would condition nomination for that office to those who had served in statewide or other elected federal posts, i.e., US Representative, for at least 6-8 years.

Their original intent was clearly to represent the States, not the people, per se, in the Senate. Today's one-issue wonders, such as Patty Murray (a/k/a the mom in tennis shoes) from Washington, or Wonderboy from Illinois, would not have been elected because they would not have met qualifications for the office.

I think the founders would also, were they alive today, impose term limits. They never envisioned a professional political class. In their day, Congress didn't even meet for most of the year. It was a part-time job, and its members had to return home to actually make their living.

Having seen today's full-time, professional political class in action at the federal level, I believe the Founders would prevent that through term limits, limits on the amount of time during the year in which Congress could be in session, or draconian limits on Congressional pay, with the removal of a pension, in order to reinforce the nature of the offices as service to the citizenry, rather than a lifetime career.

With such opinion-shaping power available via free online blogs, inexpensive websites, and the interlinking of cell phones and the internet, I believe the Framers would have sought to provide more buffers for parts of the federal government from the increased influences of immediate, broadscale public opinion on the deliberations of Congress.

Today's Inaugural Irony: Freedom Lost

Today's inauguration of the First Rookie carries a heavily ironic message.

Many seem to feel this is some sort of "historic" inauguration. Apparently, they feel that there is some sort of meaning as the first non-Caucasian takes the oath of office.

No, wait. That would be non-racist.

These people feel it's special that a black person is taking that oath. Unspoken, but present, is the implication that a black becoming President somehow provides a lesson about freedom, because once, in this country, as in many others, there was slavery. Most recently, of blacks.

Of course, this President-elect is not, we were first told, actually fully of black descent. No, he campaigned by notably emphasizing his white grandparents, though alleging the grandmother was racist. No matter, apparently. When it suits the First Rookie to be black, he's black. When partly-Caucasian, evidently, he's that, too. How omni-racial.

Isn't it ironic, then, that as many celebrate what they feel is some sense of freedom, that a person whose race mostly came to America's shores as slaves, is being inaugurated as President, that person embodies the strongest desire to take all of our freedoms of any President since his Democratic predecessor, LBJ.

Wonderboy's stated desire to spend a trillion dollars of our money to ease everybody's presumed unfair suffering, pay lower-income workers more 'just because,' nationalize healthcare, and arrogantly claim that he can personally create millions of 'green' jobs, signify the greatest loss of personal freedoms Americans will face in a generation.

Truly, it is a sad day for American liberty and freedom. The rights for which our forefathers fought the Revolution.

In only two and a half hours, America plunges into the darkness of encroaching socialism, thanks to Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, combined with the loss of departing, steadfast President Bush's veto over the worst of the socialistic programs.

It's going to be a long four years until we are once again led by someone who truly understands freedom and liberty, rather than the desire to burden us all with the yoke of socialism.

But in only two years, we might see one or both Houses of Congress break free, out of disgust with what is going to be a rocky and ill-fated Presidency, beginning in just a few hours.

Perspectives on America- From Pakistan

The other day, I received a timely reminder of what is unique about America.

One of my friends, with whom I have played squash, is a Pakistani-born medical doctor living in the US. He still has family in Pakistan, and travels there periodically with his family.

I saw him Saturday morning, and asked but his feelings regarding the recent events in his homeland. Did it bother him? With whom were is allegiances? Does he have any family members now in prison?

He said, simply,

'The ruler there is like Castro. The people don't like him. But the lawyers being thrown in jail are paid by another politician, not Bhutto.'

That's why I'm here.'

His remarks made me think, after a week of seeing the dollar fall further in relative value among other currencies. And here some Chinese official remark that they will diversify out of dollars soon.

For all America's faults, someone like my friend, the Pakistani medical doctor, will choose to live here, rather than in his own country. He doesn't trust the political climate of the land where he was born.

For all we hear about Chinese coming here for education, then returning to China to compete against us, how many stay here, for our political freedoms?

It doesn't take much to see how China is viewed in the world. They manipulated Yahoo in order to identify and imprison a Chinese journalist. Who has forgotten Tienemman Square?

When people around the world look for one economic and moral haven, it's always the US. Our freedom of speech, despite Robert Redford's increasingly cantankerous and addled mumblings, remain second to none. In a crisis, our economy provides more safety and capacity for investment than any other one.

People from other countries battle to come here. Investors from other countries bid to buy our government's securities.

Things in America are not as bad as they might occasionally seem.

You could be living in Pakistan- or China.